Google’s enormous effort to scan millions of books doesn’t violate copyright law, ruled a federal appeals court last week.

The Author’s Guild first sued Google (whose parent company is now Alphabet Inc.) in 2005, a year after Google launched the digital library project, claiming that it was taking revenue from writers.

Google, however, has maintained its project will benefit authors in the long run “by making it easier for readers to find works, while introducing them to books they might not otherwise have seen,” Reuters reports.

The three circuit judges’ decision was unanimous; in the summary opinion of the case, Authors Guild vs. Google, Inc., Judge Pierre Leval of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote:

In sum, we conclude that: (1) Google’s unauthorized digitizing of copyright-protected works, creation of a search functionality, and display of snippets from those works are non-infringing fair uses. The purpose of the copying is highly transformative, the public display of text is limited, and the revelations do not provide a significant market substitute for the protected aspects of the originals. Google’s commercial nature and profit motivation do not justify denial of fair use. (2) Google’s provision of digitized copies to the libraries that supplied the books, on the understanding that the libraries will use the copies in a manner consistent with the copyright law, also does not constitute infringement. Nor, on this record, is Google a contributory infringer.

The Guild released a statement regarding the Court’s decision, in which Mary Rasenberger, Executive Director of the Author’s Guild, said, “America owes its thriving literary culture to copyright protection. It’s unfortunate that a Court as well-respected as the Second Circuit does not see the damaging effect that uses such as Google’s can have an authors’ potential income.... We trust that the Supreme Court will see fit to correct the Second Circuit’s reductive understanding of fair use, and to recognize Google’s seizure of property as a serious threat to writers and their livelihoods, one which will effect the depth, resilience and vitality of our intellectual culture.”

Google released a statement in which Google spokesperson Aaron Stein called the project a “card catalog for the digital age.”

The 2015 case was an appeal to a lower court’s ruling in 2013 that also found Google in compliance with copyright law.

Photo credit: Google Library: Google.com